Saving Social Security: Both the program and the larger concept of SOCIAL security.

My friend, Ben Rich, wrote the following comment on a post that I shared about Social Security:

This is a very serious problem, not only for our generation, not only for senior citizens (now). Think about our children, now working, looking toward their own retirement. I certainly think that people should save and invest. But, real incomes are in decline making it harder to save and invest. What will our children face after 30 - 40 years of work?

You are right, Ben. We really need to come at this problem from both ends. Workers used to have pensions; after working for forty years for a company, they had expectation of a modest pension and their Social Security. In other words, part of what might have been their "pay" went into company pensions and another part of their pay went into Social Security. CEO's made ten to fifteen times what an ordinary worker made.

Then, in the late 70's-early 80's, everything changed. People who had worked their way through the company from the stock room to the board room became irrelevant because knowledge of the particular business was supplanted by knowledge of "business," and rather than spending forty years with a company, top level executives could move from running a cardboard box manufacturer to a soda company to a pharmaceutical company without any knowledge of that particular business. More importantly, those changes were made more and more often so that the "boss" had no real familiarity with the company or its personnel. Employee loyalty was no longer valued, and the perks that helped to engender that loyalty, like pensions, health benefits, etc. were rapidly eliminated.

As a result, companies immediately had much more profit and fewer responsibilities to the employee. Rather than sharing this largesse with the workers, that increased wealth went to the management and stockholders. Then, under Reagan, corporate mergers, creative bookkeeping, and contract breaking under Chapter 11 bankruptcies, tax havens, drastically lower tax rates for corporations and the wealthy allowed even further erosion of income for the middle class and the working poor.

The so-called "market" has become a rigged game that has nothing to do with Adam Smith's conception of capitalism. Those at the top agree to give themselves an ever larger share of the pie while reducing everyone else's share, and they pay politicians to grease the wheels for this unjustified transfer of wealth.

The cap on Social Security at barely over $100,000 dollars has the average worker pay a significant percentage of their income into the pool while the truly wealthy pay a pittance in comparison. Furthermore, those who make much of their income from investments pay a much lower tax rate than those who do the work of this country. At present, companies are rewarded for outsourcing jobs or downsizing, when "downsizing" merely means those who are left do much more work for the same or less pay.

We need a real movement to regulate financial markets, make boards and CEO's responsible to both stockholders and employees, get unlimited anonymous money out of politics, make corporations and industries responsible for the actual damage that they do to the environment and prevent that damage from continuing, and drastically strengthen the social safety net for children, workers, retirees, the infirm, and the downtrodden. We need to stabilize the banking and financial industries so that fraud and foul play cannot jeopardize a lifetime of savings in one quick downturn. We need to control medical costs so that one illness cannot destroy a lifetime of savings. We need to have a fair wage so that people can even begin to accrue a lifetime of savings.

The irony and the tragedy of our current state of affairs is that we were on a hundred year run toward realizing these progressive ideals when we were train-wrecked thirty years ago by uncontrolled greed. We can set the train back on the tracks, but first, we have to realize that it has actually jumped the tracks. The current powers that be are doing their utmost to convince those of us on the train that despite all these bumps and crashes we are still on the tracks. A vast majority, of course, realize that the profiteers and exploiters are wrong, but we are not yet convinced that it is within our means to right ourselves. It is within our means to set things back on the correct, progressive path, but the longer we wait, the harder it will be.

Don't Let the Cons Con You into Decimating Social Security

We need to stand strong and united. The assaults on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are real, and they come from both sides of the aisle. The excuse for attacking these essential, social safety net programs is the "dreadful deficit," which, of course, was created from a budget SURPLUS and was the direct result of many errant policies.

Though some Democratic Representatives have endorsed a few of these policies, most are the direct result of Republican ideology and policy: unjustified military actions and unnecessary military spending (often on programs and equipment that the military has explicitly said that it does not want or need); huge tax decreases for the wealthiest corporations and individuals; unnecessary and unwarranted subsidies for some of the wealthiest industries; egregiously unfair tax loopholes—available only to the wealthy—that allow many of the wealthiest corporations and individuals to avoid warranted taxes; totally misguided and faulty deregulation of the financial sector that lead to several drastic economic downturns, especially the most recent "great recession"; the "no-strings-attached" economic bailout of those most directly responsible for the economic collapse which has left the worst actors in better shape than before their fraud-induced collapse while leaving most of the country still devastated by economic loss; a completely unrealistic cap on Social Security contributions; six years of political sabotage and stalemate from the minority party outspokenly intent on destroying any chance of significant job recovery or health care reform merely to gain political advantage; and very significantly, a cynical media assault on Social Security, Medicare, and government in general, designed to mislead several generations into believing that there will be nothing for them in the future, that they should abandon all interest in wider society, that privatizing everything gives them a better chance, and that they should care about nothing but their own interests, and, of course, by example, that lying, cheating, and stealing are simply necessary methods for success and that the rules limiting these methods should be loosened or eliminated.

The chained CPI, a method of conscientiously miscalculating downward the needs of retirees so as to significantly reduce their benefits in the future, is actually a drastic, negative change. Before Social Security is touched, before Medicare and Medicaid and a hundred other programs that have already been diminished by political blackmail, extortion, brinkmanship, and disingenuous compromise, we need to rebuild the middle class and our social safety programs by reversing all of the failed policies mentioned above. Only after we have raised the income threshold on Social Security; only after we have reduced our outrageous and unnecessary military spending, including bringing the "Big Brother" surveillance regime under control; only after re-regulating and better regulating the financial sector; only after significantly reducing tax loopholes and subsidies for the wealthiest should we even begin to consider cuts to social programs.

Should we attempt to eliminate fraud in social programs and tax policies? Absolutely. That naturally requires more regulation and regulators, not less as the Republican congress and media echo chamber have advocated and accomplished for many years. Furthermore, we need to bring real criminal charges against those who actually committed or condoned fraud and worse, offering jail time, not just pittance penalties—people have been out of work for years now as a result of this malfeasance, and these criminal corporations are asked to pay only a few days income in fines? There is real injustice here, but many of those in Congress have fought tooth and claw to prevent their financial backers from being held accountable, choosing instead to wreak havoc on women, children, the elderly, workers, immigrants, and the poor. If we all demand that they make other more fair and equitable changes before tampering with the few programs actually designed to benefit the common man, maybe they will listen.

I encourage you to sign the petition from Bernie Sanders whether it comes from Sen. Bernie Sanders, Alliance for Retired Americans, Campaign for America's Future, Campaign for Community Change, DailyKos, Democracy For America, The Other 98%, Progressives United, Social Security Works, USAction or any other organization or politician endorsing the protection of Social Security and Medicare.

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!"
Tim McMullen

A Nod to Walt Kelly & I Go Pogo—"We have met the enemy, and he is US!"

My last post on Facebook included a video about the media distortions and mob think to which we are so easily lead; when posted elsewhere, it got the response, "Well, I guess that's why the govt. sees us all as sheep."

My response— I think that you are right: many in the government do see the people as sheep. This story is the very opposite of government manipulation, but it may expose, as you suggest, why so many politicians and those who pull their strings think of us as such.

Although some jury awards have seemed overboard, and although frivolous or nuisance lawsuits can be used unfairly, the "Tort Reform" movement is cynically motivated by the same treacherous greed and perpetrated by the same corporate criminal interests that oppose all regulation of business. In a society ruled by true laissez faire (let business do whatever it wants with no government interference) and caveat emptor (let the buyer beware), the scoundrels and the sociopaths always have the upper hand.

Tort reform; deregulation; term limits; the "religious" right to refuse insurance protections to employees; union busting; the corporate right to intrude on employee's personal lives; gag orders in legal settlements; the absurd but shrewd idea that corporations are people and money is speech; the gutting of the Voting Rights Act; the unscrupulous purging of voter roles; the enactment of new registration and voting requirements that intentionally suppress voting; "No new taxes...ever!"; the cutting or eliminating programs for those in need while heaping incredible subsidies or bailouts on those who illegally foreclose on peoples' property or pollute and destroy the environment; unjustified and illegal wars pursued on false pretenses: All of these are part of the same movement, aided by the corporate controlled media, designed to decimate the middle class. A peasantry set at one another's throats for the few remaining crumbs really is a sensible goal for a ruthless, anti-social, plutocratic oligarchy.

The fact that so many of those elected to positions of power actually subscribe to a conflation of Ayn Rand's hypocritical social Darwinism and a misinterpretation of MIlton Friedman's "business has no moral responsibility except to make money" is due, for the most part, to the carefully cultivated cynicism, apathy, and cowardice of the American people who have come to care more about the new "American Idol," the latest "Survivor," or the latest irrelevant sexual scandal or lewd celebrity pictures on the net than they care about the running of our government or the welfare of our society and our world.

As a result of willful ignorance, intellectual ennui, and a nagging but indefinable sense of aggrievement, the populous is easily manipulated and roused to incomprehensible and often uncontrollable anger over calculated and intentionally distorted or spurious claims by demagogues (Ted Cruz being the latest puppet of the Right, though the left have theirs as well). After a few hours or occasionally even days of engagement, of course, the angry mob subsides to its disinterested apathy once again.

 WE ARE the GOVERNMENT, but in so many ways we have allowed our selfishness, cowardice, ignorance, and apathy to turn over our responsibilities and our interests to those who care little for the actual needs of the country but for whom ruthless self-interest and self-righteous hypocrisy are most useful tools.

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!" Tim McMullen

Another Short Story From the Past For the Present

Anteater

A short story by Tim McMullen

As he reached out, he envisioned the scattered fragments of appendages; however, when he turned the sponge over, he saw nothing but a mere black speck on the blue surface. He held the sponge under the stream of the faucet and watched the remains swirl down the sink drain.

Tom Jenkins had always felt uncomfortable when he killed an insect. A sad, queasy feeling tremored from his stomach to his throat, and he often apologized aloud.

“Sorry, buddy,” he would say, “but you just wouldn't listen to reason!”

In fact, he often did try to reason with them; that is, he gave them a chance by trying to herd them out of the room. Spiders were the easiest: He just picked them up by their web or got them to crawl on a kleenex, and then he walked them outside. And flies could usually be coaxed out the door merely by his waving his hands and blocking their flight.

“No, really! Thomas tries to rehabilitate them and give them a college education,” his ex-wife would chortle to friends as she lashed out to swat a fly or squish a spider.

Now he just stood there with the water streaming down the drain. After turning off the water and wringing out the sponge, he heard the drone of the clock radio from the bedroom. He used the radio's “snooze bar” mechanism to indicate the time in ten-minute increments.

“And now, here's Joanna with an environmental update….”

“The President,” the radio bubbled in buoyant feminine tones, “obviously elated over his latest tactical triumph, said,

'Industry must be given a chance to fulfill their responsibilities without a bunch of uninfor….’”

“Must be 6:20,” Jenkins mumbled to himself, and he hurried off to tap the button.

Ten minutes later, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, he reflexively caught his nose between his thumb and forefinger and pinched his nostrils closed.

“Damn! The stench of that dump is getting worse,” he muttered.

When he and Anita had moved into this new housing complex, they had been unaware that a dump was situated nearby, if you could call over four miles away “nearby.” Then, about three years ago, he and his neighbors had begun to notice a pungent though not unpleasant odor, a smell resembling strong orange blossoms, wafting sporadically through the air. Eventually, someone had linked the smell to the dump, and the mystery had been solved. The smell was no longer orange blossoms, however. Tom experienced a sudden olfactory deja vu: he remembered a blast of dank, musty air gasping past him as he opened the ragged, rotted, wooden door of an old shed on his grandmother's farm. He had never gagged before, and he staggered; a sour, fetid stench flared his nostrils, and he fled from the shed and the sight of the dead cat's rotting carcass.

This morning, the malodorous miasma from the dump was a cross between that decomposing cat and one of those portable chemical toilets after it's been sitting in the hot sun for several days. He'd have to call Ted from the Tenant's Association about the outcome of their last meeting. He almost wished that he had been there. They had really pressured him to join them in their campaign against the refuse reclamation operation.

“C'mon, Tom, you're the perfect person,” Ted Rainer, the association president, had pleaded.

“Yeah, Tom,” added Jill Benton, peering out through glasses whose lenses grotesquely magnified her mottled hazel eyes. “You're a lawyer. You can talk to the people from the government and make 'em understand how bad it is.”

“Yes…yes…well, I'd like to help,” he had stammered, “but I… I…just don't have the time right now.”

It was true. His caseload was quite heavy right now, and it would be hard for him to squeeze the extra time, but that wasn't the real reason. The fact was that he just wasn't a joiner. Besides, what did he know about it? People took it for granted, “Oh, you're a lawyer? Well, can you tell me about…my dog, my aunt, my boss, my doctor, my leg, my food, my car, my landlord, my fishing pole, my dump?” Tom laughed at his list. He was only a junior public defender. What did he know about dumps or dog food? Nevertheless, the stench from the refuse disposal site was getting more odious; there was certainly no doubt about that. Maybe he really should call Ted and find out how things were going.

The traffic report clicked on as he cut a swath through the lather on his right cheek. He listened for a moment to the banter of the deejay and the copter pilot. Reassured that there were no major pileups on the freeway, he walked briskly to the bedroom.

“…that although the bill had passed unanimously during last year's reelection campaign, a majority of the committee's members, after some aggressive lobbying from industry, reversed its vote and killed the bill. “

“Business as usual, I see,” Tom Jenkins observed cynically. “Somebody unhappy about something, I'll bet.” His hands dripping water and his face full of lather, he nudged the snooze alarm with an elbow and went back to the bathroom.

That sad, queasy sensation swept over him again as he gazed from the sink to the windowsill. A line of black writhed back and forth in random movement.

“Jeez! Where the hell did you come from?” he muttered.

He reached out instinctively with his hand to sweep the inch-thick line of ants into the sink. Then, thinking better of it, he grabbed a washcloth from the rack in the shower, soaked it in the tub faucet, and then went for them.

In a second or two he had cleared the windowsill. It was easy to spot the doomed vermin as they broke rank and scampered across the muted pink tile and the dusty rose calico of the wallpaper. As he rinsed the little, brittle, black bodies into the sink, he pondered whether it was more merciful to wash them down with hot water or cold water. If they were still alive, would the hot water scald them? Maybe, with cold water, they could survive in the pipes? The thought pleased him. He didn't necessarily want them dead ...he just wanted them out of his house!

“This is ridiculous, fellas!” he said, wiping the final remnants from the basin. “What the hell has gotten into them?” he wondered aloud as he rinsed the remaining lather from his face.

He was sitting on the side of bed putting on his left shoe when the radio sounded again:

“We're in your corner,” sang the jingle, “We're on your side...”

“Uh-huh,” Tom grunted sarcastically.

“We know what you need, and we make it with pride!” the chorus tittered.

“Well, this is what I need!” he said, reaching over and pushing the bar to silence the ad.

His liberal, socioeconomic sensibilities had been slightly appalled when these giant corporate conglomerates had first begun to advertise.

“Another fine product from your friends at 'Whateveritis'” or “Remember us? We're 'Whoeverweare!’”

“Talk about 'antitrust,'“ he had quipped to George Sherman while watching an ad on security's little T.V. during a recess. “How can one company own tractors, chewing gum, textiles, sanitary napkins, canned fruit, plastic containers ...?”

By this time, however, he was no longer alarmed at their diversity; nevertheless, the absurd incongruities were still amusing. Pretty soon the whole country would be run by an oil company, a soft drink conglomerate, and an insurance company.

With his “Haveaniceday” coffee mug in his right hand and his suit coat draped over his left, he glanced at himself in the full length mirror on the back of the closet door. He was meeting with the department head to talk about a promotion, so he had dressed carefully. Some of the guys in the department were too casual… some were downright slovenly. If this promotion didn't come through, he had actually contemplated going over to the D.A.'s office. At least those fellows took their appearance seriously. He set the cup on the dresser and slipped on the coat. This was his blue Brooks Bros.; he had bought it two years ago and had used it only for special occasions like today. The coat hung well, and it still looked new.

With eyes closed slightly, he waggled his head back and forth at the neck, craning it forward and tipping it back. A little stiff, but not too bad. Stepping closer, he examined his face. Although he'd been careful, he did find a bit of dried shaving cream just behind his right ear. As he picked at the crusty, white flecks, he noticed that the hair around his ears was beginning to edge closer; it had only been two weeks since his last haircut, but it just might be time for another. Finally satisfied with his inspection, he picked up his coffee cup, flipped off the bedroom light, and walked down the narrow hall.

With his finger still on the hall light switch, he edged sideways into the kitchen; then, he flicked the hall light, pulled the door shut, and turned.

“H-O-O-O-L-L-Y-Y SHIT!” he sang out loudly.

The cup fell from his hand and bounced across the floor; the coffee splashed, but Tom barely noticed it. The entire kitchen was black. The light from the overhead kitchen lamp was muted, but the morning sun filtered through the drawn curtains. His first impulse was to turn and run; instead, he vaulted the window and threw the curtains open. Pulling away, he clapped his palms together and then examined them in the roseate light of the window.

Ants. Although legs and heads had been mashed together on his palms, the remains of the carcasses were identifiable, and some were still moving. One large black ant flailed his forelegs frantically in an apparent effort to drag his crushed body out of danger. His demonstrative antennae fluttered wildly in some secret ant semaphore. Feeling slightly nauseated, Tom wiped his palms on his suit pants.

Now the walls caught his attention. The kitchen was a writhing mass of ants. They were everywhere and on everything. The refrigerator and the stove, once white, were no longer distinguishable from what had been yellow walls and cabinets: Everything was black and moving.

Already, he could feel them on his legs and in his shoes. He kicked at the floor with his foot as if to cut a path through the ants, but to little effect. He ran to the window and tried to slam it closed. Instantly, his hands were again covered in the wriggling, tickling things. He felt them flooding up his sleeves. Thrashing furiously and beating at his arms, he sprang to the service porch and looked for a way to fight them off. The porch, if anything, was even deeper in ants. After a moment of heightened alarm, he grabbed a broom and a giant can of insect spray. Both objects were covered in ants.

Pulling the lid off the can, he aimed the nozzle at the windowsill, and holding it only a few inches from the ants, he sprayed.

At first, the mist blew a space in the advancing horde, and he actually saw a few of them swim for a moment and then stop moving. Instantly, however, the empty space was filled with new recruits. Rather than deterring them, the dead bodies merely served as steppingstones over the poison-drenched sill, and the monsters swarmed in by the thousands. Dropping the empty can, Tom Jenkins swatted at his neck and arms; and then, he brushed at his face with both hands as if washing with ant lather.

He grabbed at the black, ant-covered broom; whirling around, he swept at the floor in wild, exaggerated movements. He found that by brushing back and forth as rapidly as he was able, he could keep clear about a three-foot circle. If he could hold his own for just a minute, he reasoned, the ants would get wind of the danger and halt their advance. Now that he had overcome his initial shock, he entered the battle in earnest. He got a rhythm going.

One/two/three/four/five/six/strokes at the floor, then one/two at the cabinets. One/two/three/four/five/six—one/two—one/two/three/four/five/six—one/two! He gained confidence every moment; the ants were faltering. He increased his circle of unoccupied territory to nearly four feet, and one of the cupboard doors was nearly clear.

Stepping backward to increase his attack, he inadvertently placed his foot on the dropped coffee mug, and the jolt sent him sprawling. Instantly, he felt a terrible pain, and he realized that he had cracked his head against the corner of the stove. He felt the warm ooze at the side of his head, and he slumped to the floor.

“NO!” he screamed, but when he opened his mouth, he felt the dirty little things crawling allover his lips and tongue. He spat, “Phah! Phah!” and sealed his lips tightly. He could feel several of the ants wriggling between his lips as he crushed them closed.

Only half-conscious, he made feeble attempts to stop the ants' advance. Like the cup and the appliances, he was now completely submerged in the crawling sea of ants. As they poured into his ear canal, they made a sound like horses on sandpaper roller skates. He opened his eyes for an instant then blinked them closed, but it was too late. Ants streamed across his eyeballs, and the room grew dark. He tried blinking rapidly—he rubbed at his eyes with his fists—but the ants were too much.

His head throbbed mercilessly, and it felt sticky somewhere. One of the advance guard entered his left nostril; Jenkins snorted furiously, but more ants followed instantly. He could feel their progress: waving their little legs and antennae about, they lurched forward, tentatively, into his nasal passages. Breathing had become almost impossible. He snuffed, and then gagged as several ants were sucked up into his sinuses. He opened his mouth to gasp for breath and then involuntarily swallowed a mouthful of the crawling invaders.

No longer able to move, he felt them scurrying across his eyeballs, scrambling into his nose and down his throat, scrabbling deep into his ear. Then, through the sound of their continuous onslaught and his own stertorous breathing, he heard the click of the radio.

“Next up...an alarming report on honey-bees, but first….”

“We're in your corner,” sang the jingle, “We're on your si....”

©1985 Tim McMullen

All Rights Reserved

Healthcare and the "It's My Money" Argument

A friend on Facebook posted an article about a chain store, Hobby Lobby, suing the government over the Affordable Care Act because of their religious opposition to contraception. Though the thread got a little off topic, the following reasonable question was raised about another commentator’s suggestion that we should have universal healthcare like 90% of the developed nations.

“Why should I be forced to pay for the irresponsibility of another person? Rights are restrictions on what other people can force upon you. You have the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You have the right to believe what you want, the right to go about doing whatever you want without being forced into doing anything with anybody else that you do not wish to participate in so long as you are not effecting there rights. How is it your birthright to take my money and pay for your healthcare if you choose to live a lifestyle that will cause medical problems?"

Granted, it missed the whole religious aspect of the contraception issue, but it asks a question many ask about taxes. What follows is my answer:

Fred, I was going to let this thread about a petty and spurious legal squabble slide since your response to my answer about the religious nature of the lawsuit was not a rebuttal but a complete reframing of the issue that was, again, completely irrelevant to the article. But after your answer to Amy’s question about universal healthcare, I feel compelled to weigh in.

I do not wish to attribute to you any assumptions or views that you do not hold, yet in order to respond to the underlying premises, I find it necessary to make some generalizations. I am not accusing you of or praising you for being a libertarian; however, your line of reasoning is along “libertarian” lines.

People like Ron Paul and Penn Gillette make compelling arguments about the intrusive and/or oppressive nature of government while elevating the rights of the individual over the demands of society. I am guessing that these arguments, if unexamined, have resonance with a majority Americans.

Ayn Rand’s vision of the exceptional, self-made man, the individualistic hero—Emerson and Thoreau’s “self-reliant” individual turned into a morally superior and anti-social megalomaniac—as well as Nietzsche’s “Übermensch” or “Superman,” has also found increasing popularity in an ethical, social, political, and economic milieu where the wages and rights of the worker have been significantly eroded while a new class of corporate mega-millionaires has been created.

Anyone born during or since Reagan’s reign has lived in a society in which “government IS the PROBLEM” has been the “common wisdom”; this is a “consensus” that was carefully designed and executed long before Reagan’s ascendancy, and one that continues to be bought and paid for by billions of corporate dollars spent to perpetuate that destructive falsehood. Government is NOT the problem. However, BAD government is ONE of the problems. Mythical distortions of history and anti-intellectualism are also problematic for a society as is an unsustainable economy predicated on personal greed and perpetual growth.

E.E. Cummings coined the phrase “shrill, collective myth” to describe a “popular” view of history. Our collective myth perpetuates some very powerful and laudable assumptions. You said, for example, “Rights are restrictions on what other people can force upon you.” This point, of course, stems from an assumption of “Natural Rights,” i.e., those rights that are “inalienable” and which apply equally to all humans, as opposed to “Legal Rights,” which are those rights conferred by the laws of a society. Jefferson included the phrase, “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” If, by Creator (with a capital “C”) he meant God, then this very line of reasoning is not self-evident, but pure conjecture. The existence of God (as anthropomorphic being rather than as Tillich’s “Ultimate Concern”) is certainly not self-evident any more than basic rights are self-evident. This, on the other hand, does not mean that these enumerated rights are not good goals.

You also quote the brilliant “Declaration of Independence” directly: “You have the right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’” Of course, it is important to remember that the men who penned these phrases held and justified the holding of slaves, in essence, instantly contradicting all three provisions as far as slaves were concerned.

John Locke, the philosopher from whom much of the rationale for the “Declaration” was acquired, suggested in “A Letter Concerning Toleration”: “The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests.  ¶Civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like.” Notice that he actually included health as one of these “civil interests.” These sentences were preceded by his analysis and dismissal of the “pretense” of claims by both church and magistrate as an excuse to dominate others. His rational analysis of and call for religious tolerance (which echoes Roger William’s essay “On the Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, 1644) is extremely pertinent and, I think you would agree, comes down solidly on the side of the Affordable Care Act and against Hobby Lobby.

Finally, you suggest the following: “You have the right to believe what you want, the right to go about doing whatever you want without being forced into doing anything with anybody else that you do not wish to participate in so long as you are not effecting there (sic) rights.” This is certainly true in a social vacuum, and as long as one lives completely outside of any human contact (and some would extend this to inter-species contact), such rights can remain sacrosanct. However, as soon as another individual enters the picture, such rights are either lost entirely, in the case of subjugation or domination, or compromised in ways that accommodate both individuals. This is the nature of society. I completely agree with your characterization of lofty goals, and I would tend to agree with Locke and Jefferson (and with you, perhaps?) that governments came into existence to “secure these rights.”

Unfortunately, lofty goals aside, the argument nearly always degenerates into an argument about “MY MONEY!” and returns us to the fiction of the “self-made man” and the “self-made money.” I would be happy to address this “we made this” fallacy elsewhere, but here it simply comes down to the simple fact that taxes are not the government stealing from the individual, it is the individual consenting to be taxed as a part of being the governed.

As Locke said in “Sec. 140.” Of the Second Treatise of Civil Government, after spending paragraphs explaining why no person can be legally deprived of property, he avers: “It is true, governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys his share of the protection, should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent, i.e. the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves, or their representatives chosen by them: for if any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people, by his own authority, and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government: for what property have I in that, which another may by right take, when he pleases, to himself?”

Therefore, roads and schools and military and police and business regulations and health care that the society, through their representative government, deem worthy of securing, is a fundamental part of a societal construct. That our own society has abdicated Locke’s “civil interest” in health is a moral disgrace, and the fact that we have relegated basic health protections to the private profiteers is something that we actually should be up in arms about.

This brings us to your view of “health” and “health care.” You argue, “How is it your birthright to take my money and pay for your healthcare if you choose to live a lifestyle that will cause medical problems?" Are you arguing that all health issues can be avoided through lifestyle choices? Mitigated, certainly, but avoided? Of course not. What of the child born with a disease or who contracts one early in life? Was that a result of the child’s lifestyle? If not, would you admit that this child has a birthright to health care? Or is this individual’s life merely determined by the vagaries of wealth and whether or not the family can afford it? We have a right, as a society, to agree otherwise.

If I knowingly eat spoiled food, I am an idiot. But do we, as a part of our consent to be governed have a right to demand that the government regulate those who make and provide food so that it is not spoiled when we eat it? Do we have a right to demand that corporations not pollute our environment or that when they do, we, as a society, have a right to extract both compensation and punishment for that harm (a basic Lockean premise from the same paragraph of his letter quoted above).

I have no children. You appear to argue that the government taking my money and paying for the education of someone else’s children is inherently wrong. Howard Jarvis, the demagogue who led the “taxpayers’ revolt” with Prop 13 in California is still hailed as a guiding light by many. He stated unequivocally that he did not believe in public education. I believe that Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann were idiots about tax policy (or more likely, knowing con men), sycophants for the corporatocracy parading as “grass roots” organizers, an early example of “astro-turfing,” and direct contributors to our current economic woes.

I, however, would not begrudge their children a public education nor would I deny their fundamental social right to health care. Ironically, Paul Gann contracted AIDS, apparently from a transfusion, and at the end of his life, he was an advocate for AIDS treatment and patient’s rights. The "Paul Gann Blood Safety Act" (California Health and Safety Code Section 1645(b)) mandates that physicians discuss the risks of blood transfusions. Public money well spent on government intervention to protect the health of individuals. Just like public money well spent on public education, fire and safety enforcement, infrastructure, business regulations, and health care—including contraception.

We, as citizens, have every right to demand that our tax dollars are “well spent,” and we have a right to argue about how to spend them, but we don’t have a right to individually withhold it on religious or personal grounds. I, of course, also think that Churches who participate in political activity either in the pulpit or through campaign contributions as well as any “non-profit” (501(c)(3)’s, like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, that engage in political activity should also be taxed, but that, again, is a different argument for a different time.

Personally, I sort of like the idea of voters getting to “check off” where their tax dollars will go. I am enraged and outraged that my taxes support the murdering of innocent civilians by “video game” (drone); the protection and subsidizing of irresponsible, criminal, and in some cases, murderous corporations and their management; and myriad other examples of what I see as misuses of government, i.e., tax-payer, funds. But until we, the governed, create such a system, then it is unfair and unreasonable to argue that the government is usurping or commandeering or “stealing” your money simply because you object to how it is used. Lobby to change it, or revolt to change it, but to argue coercion on a particular specific is, at the very least, disingenuous.

Celebrate Columbus Day by Taking Back America!

Below are two comments that I wrote. One is to the CEO of Bank of America about their decision to gouge even more profits at the expense of their customers, and the second is a response to a very clever picture from "How to Raise Your Vibration," which has contorted a dollar bill(s) to read, "We need a revolution." They fit nicely together, I think.

Mr. Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America,

You have made the outrageous decision to squeeze even more money from a citizenry and clientele that is beleaguered by an economic downturn and innumerable accomplished and impending foreclosures, a downturn that was caused specifically by the fraud, deception, and malfeasance of banks, accounting firms, ratings companies, brokerage firms, and many corrupt corporations, yours included.

Charging your customers a $5 monthly fee to access money in their own account (money that you already make money on by holding it and loaning it) is beneath contempt.

I was a loyal B of A customer for many years, but I will have nothing more to do with your firm until your egregious gouging of customers ceases.

This latest outrage is the last straw. I am urging everyone on my social network and everyone on my blogs to find a local savings and loan for their banking needs and turn their back on vultures who prey on the vulnerable while stuffing themselves with ever more unconscionable profits and bonuses while stiffing customers and society at large. Furthermore, I am encouraging my contacts to encourage the same from all their contacts!

Without a radical change of course for your bank, we will prove that you are not too big to fail!

(I ended with my usual, but newly amended aphorism to be found at the end of this post).

The following was posted on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/How-to-Raise-Your-Vibration/204840666199710

We do need a revolution, but a revolution brought about by thinking, not guns; a revolution brought about by wisdom, not clichés and obfuscating talking points; a revolution through moral behavior, not mindless violence; a revolution in values, not the false values designed to disenfranchise or subdue others, but a true valuing of the individual AND the society that allows the many to prosper and not just the few.

As the great Gil Scott-Heron said, "The revolution will not be televised." Why? Because we have allowed the corrupt few to steal our media and our political system for a "free marketing, deregulating" lie.

It is time to take our institutions back.

Government is not our enemy. But a government controlled by corrupt corporations and the politicians who do their bidding is by far our biggest danger. No group of terrorists world wide could wreak such havoc on our society or the world as the destruction we have allowed these corporate vultures to rain down on us with absolute impunity.  And everyday, their political lackeys and media mouthpieces propose ever greater outrages.

The revolution may not be televised, but it can be organized and energized, and it is time that we do our part to help bring down this false prophet, PROFIT! Prosperity? Absolutely! But profiteering, like the pirates of old, must be stopped cold. We must rid our society of banksters and profiteers. Fair wages; equal protection under the law; health, safety, and a clean environment: these are the things that a fair and functional society can provide. However, these are the very things that are anathema to a system based on the perpetual degradation and exploitation of the many for the protection and profits of the few. This oligarchy needs to fall and be replaced by a new vision and model of governance practicing real American values of rewarding hard work, seeking to ensure fair treatment, and balancing the rights of the individual and the society to the mutual benefit of both.

Truth...Justice...these really have been taken away from us, or rather, we willingly gave them up for the dangling carrot of personal profit over honesty, integrity, and conscience. We have created several generations who believe only in the first half of the Golden Rule, "Do Unto Others!", and we have been sold the idea that "As you would have them do unto you," is bad for business. Well, if that is true, then it's a bad business that we are in!

We don't need a Superman, we just need to be real Americans again. Our kryptonite has been selfishness, greed, and a disregard for our fellow man (Yes, on this Columbus Day, I know that our history is rife with the antithesis of my "real American society," filled with the repeated intrusion of this Kryptonite, but history has also shown a slow, but steady progress and evolution toward the ideals of Truth and Justice, and despite this latest, thirty-year set back, we can help to restore that progress by joining the fight.

Whether you are of the 99% or the 1%, I encourage you to join the fight to restore integrity to our system.

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! The Greatest Threat to Hypocrisy is Democracy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!" Tim McMullen

Demand that the President "Seek Truth" & Corporations "Speak Truth!"

To the President of the United States:

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!"

Please use this ban on stealth dollars as the beginning salvo to rein in the distorting and destructive abuse of corporate dollars on our political process.

Thirty years of corrupt "free market" fraud has brought us to the brink of disaster. You serve the American people, and they deserve your concerted effort on their behalf as opposed to the continued collusion between government and the private sector that has created the greatest disparity of wealth in this country's history and that has driven us to become the fourth worst country in the world regarding wealth distribution and income disparity.

Thirty years of the morally (and legally) corrupt and corrosive falsehoods of Milton Friedman and Arthur Laffer's "Reaganomics," the band wagon boondoggles of the "New Democratic Clintonomics," and the outright destruction of America's working class during ten years of unfettered, deregulated rape of the world economy and the unmitigated destruction of the social safety net by the "Bush Doctrine" (Anyone who we perceive to be a threat—with or without evidence—we have a right to take out!)

That doctrine, as absurd and patently hypocritical as it is (i.e., it is the precise rationale for committing acts of terror), was barely used in military terms, but it was used consistently and repeatedly to attempt to wipe out 100 years of progressive reforms and protections for the American worker and citizen against the unconscionable abuses of a corrupt and criminal corporate capitalism.

You were elected to stop the hemorrhaging of the economic and social structures of this country caused by unchecked corporate fraud and greed. You have not yet succeeded. This would be an important step in restoring sanity and justice to the country.

Please bring the abuses of government contractors to an end now, by demanding transparency in their spending of taxpayer dollars to subvert the taxpayers' interests.

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!"

Tim McMullen

Check out this video and this call to action from MoveOn.org

http://pol.moveon.org/militarycontractors?id=27605-15276185-tWdV60x&t=5

Through the Looking Glass—The Irrational Assault on America

You know, sometimes it really does feel like we are living in a Looking-Glass world. The frantic deregulation and merger frenzy of the last thirty years, stoked by the unfettered greed of banks, insurance companies, giant accounting firms, pharmaceuticals, media organizations, energy companies, and the Chamber of Commerce (to name but a few) nearly bankrupted this nation; the anti-tax policies and upward redistribution of wealth of the Bush years unquestionably brought on the greatest economic meltdown since the depression; colossal, criminal, corporate fraud and malfeasance have been exposed repeatedly, yet no real political or legal response has been forthcoming.

Instead, the "know-nothing" Tea Party swept politicians into power with the craziest campaign imaginable. Take all the things that nearly destroyed us—unfettered corporate greed, no public accountability for private or public corruption, an orchestrated attack against the regulation of criminal corporations, unlimited secret political spending by corporations wedded to an all-out assault on public and private unions and their political power—and reenergize each of these assaults on the middle-class ten-fold.

This illogical, delusional, self-destructive, Mad-Hatter Tea Party craze has now consumed the entire Republican’t party (as well as a few putative Democrazies) who are now clamoring and clambering over each other in a race to dismantle the last remaining shreds of the social, economic, and political safety nets of the diminishing pool of middle-income workers and the ever-increasing ocean of lower-income and unemployed workers.

Instead of attacking the obvious causes of our economic woes (including two illegal wars costing us over three billion dollars weekly), these elected representatives (read corporate political shills) and their deregulated media mouthpieces have mounted legislative campaigns to extend tax cuts and corporate subsidies for the wealthiest 1% while denying even minimal economic protections for workers; they are attempting to entirely eliminate funding for all public media, the only entities providing real, even-handed journalism in this country; they are attempting to severely curtail or destroy workers rights and protections with an unprecedented assault on collective bargaining; they have introduced a full-fledged campaign to decimate women’s rights by radically redefining rape, criminalizing miscarriages, allowing hospitals to refuse to save a woman’s life if doing so requires an abortion, and authorizing the legal murder of abortion providers; they have continued attacks on the rights of LGBT community; they continue their attempt to demonize immigrants and undocumented workers; and they have begun to decimate or eliminate environmental protections while legislatively denying scientific evidence and disallowing that evidence to affect our environmental policies.

The unimaginable harms of these initiatives, considered separately or collectively, is truly mind-boggling. As I learned from more than twenty-five years of collective bargaining, “once you give it up, you never get it back.” Just envision the havoc that any one of these proposals will wreak on our society, and then try to imagine what it would take to fix it once it is in place.

If we don’t get involved, NOW, in private conversations, in public demonstrations, in political campaigns; if we don’t immediately inform our elected representatives, both local and national, of our positions on these vital issues; if we don’t write our local newspapers and media outlets with rational, focused responses to the vitriolic distortion and lies of wacky political demagogues and crackpot pundits, the cause of democracy here and around the world will be setback for generations, perhaps many generations, to come.

“The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!” Tim McMullen  

Why I am Voting in the Next Election...An Answer to a Democratic Query

Today, the "Democratic Party," in an obvious fund-raising ploy, asked me to commit to voting in the next election, and, if I wanted, to add a brief explanation as to why I was voting. Their example was: "I'm voting because I want to move America forward." My explanation, the one that follows here, may have been a bit more than they expected, but I really do think that we could all help to bring about more substantial and positive changes if we committed ourselves to a more conscious and thoughtful political life. I encourage you to contact your representatives, your party, and yes, to give money to the causes that advocate for your beliefs.

I am voting in the next election and in every election because "The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy!" I want the United States to regain a commitment to its original vision, and I want the Democratic Party to return to its own most important principles. The writers of the Declaration of Independence removed "the protection of property" and replaced it with "the pursuit of happiness" because they realized that the defense of property and the inevitable domination by wealth would trump all of the other more fundamental rights and principles.

Since the 80's, the Democratic Party has been complicit in elevating the interests of corporations and the wealthy while decimating the interests of workers. Milton Friedman's proudly immoral stance on the lack of corporate responsibility, and the fact that his philosophy has been ruthlessly championed by both parties, has lead us to our present precipice. Recent and repeated capitulation by Democrats has gutted each piece of legislation intended to help the people.

Capitulation on principles over the last forty years has ultimately led us to the bald-faced absurdity, though perfectly Friedmanesque decision, of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Democrats and the American people have allowed unfettered media deregulation and general political discourse to be dragged so far to the right that it is no longer about evening the playing field; it's about allowing workers and the common man to even be in the game.

Corporate tax breaks, tax shelters, deregulation, unchecked fraud and corporate handouts have allowed trillions of dollars to be taken from the working class in the form of unprotected job loss created by outsourcing and so-called "improved efficiency"; by the elimination of pensions and reduction or elimination of healthcare; by laws designed to allow and encourage union busting; by the creative use of "bankruptcy" to break union contracts and to reduce workers' rights and benefits; by unconscionable CEO compensation; and by reductions to basic governmental protections and services, ad infinitum, while putting these trillions in the hands of a miniscule percentage of the wealthiest.

It is important to vote and to speak out on these issues in order to allow America to regain its moral integrity and reclaim its international stature.

I reiterate my motto, “The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!”
Tim McMullen

End Credits from "The Other Guys" are Brilliant Satire

To the FCC: Stop Media Giants & Corrupt Politicians from Hijacking the Internet

The FCC has recently made several important and courageous decisions that have begun to reassert the right of the American people to protect their access to information and to end the unregulated abdication of the people's authority in deference to the whims and greed of corporate control.

A blatantly hypocritical, actively reactionary, politically motivated, and newly-emboldened Supreme Court recently handed down a bizarre and logic-twisting decision taking away a fundamental right of the citizenry to control their own political process as well as their right to regulate corporations while handing corporate America the ability to completely subvert the democratic process and dominate, if not destroy, free and open elections in America.

Not being satisfied with having spent forty years purchasing this morally and intellectually corrupt Supreme Court, these ever more rapacious corporations and ruthless ideologues have taken their game plan one step further.

Having decimated our public media and turned it into patently partisan infotainment through the thoroughly discredited process of deregulation and consolidation, they now have their eyes set on the latest and last bastion of open information and communication, the internet.

Dozens of elected politicians who have been further terrified or emboldened by this crass carte blanche handed to some of America's most morally corrupt corporations, have been cajoled, as a result of the peddling of influence, into supporting the further erosion, decimation, and perhaps elimination of this last venue for honest intellectual and political discourse.

These politicians, whose campaigns and loyalty have been purchased by corporate spending, due to our perverted system of campaign finance now further distorted by the most recent judicial fiat of the Supreme Court, do not speak for the people of the United States. They clearly represent only the interests of their financial backers.

No reasonable, fair-minded person purporting to represent the interests of their constituents or the American people could pretend that the complete control of the internet by media giants and communication conglomerates serves the needs of the populace or of a democracy. Perhaps it does meet the needs of the "constitutional republic," as the Texas State School Board now insists it be called in order to overtly denigrate "democrat" in favor of "republic-an" in another example of the flagrant distortion and politicization that can be wrought through the control of information and the power of publishing.

As you well know, this tiny minority of Congressional shills does not speak for the millions of Americans who have participated in a lengthy, hard-fought, uphill battle to convince the FCC and Congress to protect an open Internet and to facilitate universal access.

Once again, the FCC must stand up to these crass and corrupting commercial interests, assert its Title II authority, and fulfill its duty by protecting the right of the American people to an open and democracy-empowering Internet.

“The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!”

Tim McMullen

Consider adding your voice to the campaign at http://www.savetheinternet.com/